The Pennsylvania prison system has a directive called DC-ADM 804. It supposedly creates procedures allowing prisoners to grieve problems and injustices. Admittedly the grievance procedure is arcane, difficult and even draconian, but, if administrators used it in good faith, problems and tensions within the prisons could easily be reduced. Regretably, prison administrators refuse to apply the system in good faith. Like bullies everywhere, they're terrified of looking weak. As the administrators see it, it would be weakness to acknowledge a problem and correct it. Their whole effort, therefore is to frustrate and subvert the system. The prison system is rife with petty tyrants. Take the sergeant at the Frackville state prison. A cigarette puffing addict, he habitually delays calling men to their visits. In his mind that displays his power and impresses upon the prisoners that they are weaker than he is. Such defective egos aren't unusual. Prison employees tend to be psychologically maladjusted. Most serious prison problems start as small, easily resolved matters. Instead of resolving the small thing, insecure prison administrators feel the need to frustrate grievances.
The state prison at Frackville in eastcentral Pennsylvania may be the worst, but the grievance procedures are frustrated across the whole system. Prison administrators don't intend for it to work. Prisoners realize that reality so they seldom bother to even try. They take matters into their own hands. Such dangerous disorder is the very thing that the grievance system was supposed to avert.
Consider the charges the prison system imposes on prisoners' telephone calls. Admittedly, the prison telephone system is a racket. While everybody else pays less than half a buck, a 15 minute call costs about $6.50! It's money paid not by the prisoner, but by the impoverished prisoner's family. To add further expense and irritation, the prison system interrupts every call with frequent announcements, 5 in 15 minutes. The prisoner or the party he's calling must pay for the interruptions. Various prisoners have complained about the clearly unconstitutional practice. Jon at the Huntingdon prison was denied relief. Prison Superintendent Robert Shannon at the Frackville prison told a complaining prisoner: "I do not agree with your contention that your rights are being violated." In spite of the Supreme Court case, Wooley v Maynard, 430 US 705, 97 SCt 1428, 51 LEd2d 752, the Superintendent thinks that it's okay for a citizen to be charged to publish the state's messages.
Systemic and system-wide problems aren't the only ones which are handles illegally. The Pennsylvania prison system holds the law in contempt. Consider the federal law which mandates the confidentiality of medical information, (42 USC 1177(2) and (3)). A woman at the Frackville prison, Barbara G. Malewski repeatedly released medical information about a prisoner. Before the prisoner could sue, he had to go through the prison grievance ordeal. Prison administrators simply refused to address the complaint. The same woman, Barbara Malewski, refused to honor a prisoner's request for accommodation under the federal Americans With Disabilities Act, a law intended to help disabled persons cope with everyday life. When the prisoner submitted the grievance required by prison directive DC-ADM 006, a person named Jerry Pritchitt simply refused to process the grievance. The prison system refuses to address (or remedy) both systemic and personal problems. The Malewski woman, for example responds with hearsay, a recital of what someone has told her the prisoner may have done. A solution is farthest from the result.
The prison grievance system fails because of the personality of the prison staff. They rely on shifting blame and avoiding responsibility. They are too afraid to act in good faith or even to obey their own laws or rules. To solve a problem would be an admission that a problem exists. In a system as badly broken and decrepit as the Pennsylvania prison system, any admission of a fault might bring down the whole corrupt edifies. The mentality is one of revenge and vindictiveness. Prison administrators deny problems. To do otherwise would force them to confront the dilemma of their own inadequacy. You are welcome to use or republish
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